


Fourth Time's a Charm

by whimsicalmuse



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: First Time, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-23
Updated: 2004-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-07 20:38:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7728913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalmuse/pseuds/whimsicalmuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Elijah tried to tell him, they were in a nudie bar of all god forsaken places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fourth Time's a Charm

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Shirasade: this story was originally archived at the [Monaboyd.net Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Monaboyd.net), which was closed in September 2014 due to software issues and a lack of new submissions for several years. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in October 2014. I e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Monaboyd.net Archive collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Monaboyd_Archive/profile).

The first time Elijah tried to tell him, they were in a nudie bar of all god forsaken places. It was Sean Bean’s birthday, and a union of elves, men, and hobbits had been assembled to help the lad bring in his day with style—and a healthy dose of breasts.

Which explained why Sean (Astin, that is) bless him, was pleasantly red-faced from the lone beer the boys had convinced him to enjoy, and slouched ungracefully in the booth, his thick fingers tearing at the bottle’s label.

To Elijah, he looked rather like he was still filming a scene from the movie, his long bangs casting shadows over his brow, and his lips curled into a sleepy smile.

It was a lovely—albeit frustrating—sight to behold.

Frustrating, because try as he might, Elijah just couldn’t maintain the man’s attention long enough to get a bit of something off of his chest.

Somehow, during the course of filming, Elijah had fallen in love with him.

He then spent the rest of the months trying to figure out how, how he was going to get over it.

At a loss, he asked Dom what to do.

“Tell him,” he replied, his stormy eyes unusually light.

“Tell him?”

“Tell him.”

To hear Dom talk Elijah would have thought it was as simple as that.

Just, “Hi Sean, I love you.”

Sean would leap into his arms, like a sappy love story, and the two would tangle on a flower bed, kissing as if their lives depended on it, and in the company of chirping birds and golden sunshine, they’d live happily ever after.

What Dom had apparently forgotten, was the several complications that existed in the equation.

First, Sean was married. _Happily married._ Happily married and showing no sign of having any interest whatsoever in men. Or Elijah.

Which lent itself to the second problem.

If, and this was a big if here, Sean had bumped his head and returned the feelings, there still was the issue of sex.

Elijah, well, Elijah was a virgin.

Well, with men, that is.

He knew what he wanted to do, had been shocked by enough stories from Dom to know what went where, but when he got down to it he was doomed.

If he ever got to that point with Sean, that is.

Elijah sighed, gulped down the last remains of his beer and feigned a casual attitude as he bounced his head to an interesting brand of New Zealander music that sounded like a cross between Zydeco, Hard Rock and bluegrass.

“So, Elijah,” Sean began suddenly. “What are you doing this weekend?”

Elijah sputtered.

Funny thing, love. It made Elijah lose all coherent thought when talking to Sean.

“I-I erm, I dunno yet, actually. How about you?”

“Meh, nothing really. The family is out of town this week. Chris is going back to visit her mom, and taking the baby with.”

Elijah felt a lick of excitement run up his chest.

A week alone.

If he played his cards right, at least he’d have a chance to talk with Sean without the omnipresent presence of the wife and kid hovering so close by.

It was so much harder to confess inappropriate feelings for a married man when the wife and kid were about.

He winced, hoping Sean couldn’t see it.

That was another problem with this…stuff he felt for Sean.

It made him feel like the worse piece of shit imaginable.

Billy assured him the guilt would pass once he got it off his chest.

God, he hoped Billy was right.

He looked at the clock. 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and the family was out of town. If he just told Sean now, Sean would have time to retreat to the privacy of his home and freak out alone.

He sucked in breath softly, and opened his mouth.

“Sean, I-I have to tell you something.”

“OH! I just remembered! Viggo told me about a guest speaker that’s supposed to be in town. She’s on political asylum from—what?”

Elijah whimpered into the cup he’d snatched up compulsively.

He feigned innocence.

“What?”

Sean looked puzzled.

“You just said you wanted to tell me something. What was it?”

Elijah’s hands poured rivers and he opened his mouth to speak. A high pitched croak trickled out drowned by the noise of the nudie bar.

“Elijah?”

Sean leaned forward, concerned, and rested his hand onto Elijah’s wrist, rubbing idly.

Dom and Billy staggered over their arms wrapped around one another, and grinned. Orlando followed, surreptitiously glaring at the ease in which Billy managed to get Dom to hang all over him when drunk.

Elijah had seen—and heard—firsthand just how insecure the man was about it.

Dom wrote if off.

“Billy and I, together? Not going to happen. I’m not going anywhere, Orlando.”

And then Orlando and Dom started making out, and Elijah found an excuse to leave, just like he always did.

Just like he hoped to do now.

He wasn’t about to tell Sean with an audience.

No fucking way.

“Havin’ fun, Doodle?”

Dom ruffled his hair.

Elijah _hated_ it when he did that.

“Er, yeah, but I’m feeling queasy. I think I’m going to head out, actually.”

Sean’s grip tightened. He leveled his eyes with Elijah’s, murmuring softly.

“You were going to tell me something.”

Elijah faltered. This was the reason he was not entirely sure about telling Sean.

Because sometimes he got the impression Sean felt back.

“I forgot. The mind is blank.”

He forced a crooked smile.

“Looks like the Doodle-bug is a wee bit pissed aye?” Billy giggled.

“Yeah,” Elijah agreed weakly. “That’s it.”

*

The second time Elijah tried to tell him was the following afternoon, over lunch at a hole in the wall café.

Sean had risen early, enjoying a jog, and then the guest speaker brunch. He was still going on about it.

“She-she was just so brilliant, Elijah. So articulate and peaceful, especially when you consider all that she’s been through in her life. Man, I tell you, ours is truly a blessed existence.”

Sure, so long as you weren’t in love with someone you couldn’t have.

“Yeah.”

Elijah snatched up his cup of java, and slurped at it.

Sean gave him a look—the same look he’d given him the night before—and fingered a napkin idly.

“Elijah, you do know you could tell me if something’s bothering you right?”

Elijah felt his mood soar.

Maybe the man did have a clue!

“I-I know that, Sean, I do really.”

“So tell me why the long face. You’re eyes have been in the clouds lately, and from the look of the forecast in your eyes, things aren’t so peaceful. What’s wrong? What did you want to tell me?”

Elijah opened his mouth, felt the words tingle on the tip of his tongue, and closed his eyes.

“Elijah?”

He felt the fist vibrations rumble in his throat.

“Sean,” he swallowed past his hesitation. “Sean I—“

And then disaster broke loose.

Sean’s cell phone vibrated on the table, knocking his coffee onto his lap, and with a yelp, he picked up the tinkling device, and croaked his hello.

It was Christine, calling to tell him they arrived okay.

Elijah’s heart sank.

There was no way he’d be able to talk about his feelings now and the fact that Sean suffered a scalded crotch when he tried was probably an omen.

Sean held his hands up, as if to motion to Elijah not to leave, but Elijah silently begged off mouthing “I have to go, see you later!”

He waited until he’d turned the corner a whole block away, before he let his head fall into his hands, and sighed.

He was torn up inside, and felt he’d never find his way.

*

The third time he tried to tell Sean he was still sticky-eyed and grimacing at his own morning breath.

Sean, worried about their exchange the day before, had come bearing breakfast, and a smile.

He also came to talk.

After he prepared a watery omelet, half-cooked pancakes, and some over-cooked bacon, he could contain himself no longer, and dropped a bomb on Elijah.

“I know why you wanted to talk to me, Elijah.”

Elijah nearly choked up the bit of egg he was trying desperately to keep down in the first place.

“Oh?”

“Yep. I talked to Dom, and he dropped a few hints, and I put all the pieces together.”

Elijah blinked.

When had the room started spinning?

“So, you know then?”

Sean grinned.

“Oh yeah. I’m surprised I didn’t see it sooner, actually.”

Elijah frowned.

“And you’re okay with it?”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay with it, Elijah? There’s nothing wrong with being gay. Besides, you’re my friend. Nothing, certainly not your sexuality, is going to change that.”

Elijah’s heart sank.

The man had it all wrong.

“You still look miserable, Elijah. You sure that’s all that was wrong with you?”

Here it was, his opportunity.

“Well, I’ve been having problems with it, that’s all.”

He was sure he heard the proverbial ball drop, roll into a wall, and then suddenly bust and fall flat.

Sean, typically oblivious, just smiled some more.

“Do you need someone to set you up? I bet Dom has a few friends…”

“No, Sean, I don’t think so. I really think I was just worried about what people would do when they found out.”

He conveniently left out the rest of the sentence. When they found out he was in love with Sean.

Sean covered Elijah’s hand with his.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Elijah.”

Elijah let the watery piece of egg slide down his esophagus.

He wouldn’t worry about it at all.

*

The forth time he tried to tell Sean, though tried became a term he used loosely at that point, he was at Dom’s house, and well, strictly speaking, he wouldn’t have said anything, if Dom and Orlando hadn’t erupted into a nasty fight.

It was a long story.

Dom had his weekly movie night, where he and the boys would get together and in between taking the piss out of one another, they would manage to watch whatever crap Dom had rented on special from the video store down the way.

The problem arouse when Billy pushed Orlando’s last button, and they erupted into a rather unpleasant discussion in the kitchen.

Elijah didn’t hear all of the particulars, but he knew enough from the snippets that he did hear, that they weren’t talking about Billy’s chicken soup recipe.

But when Orlando carried his voice and argument into the living room, Elijah got quite the earful.

“…You’ve been eyeing him the way Elijah ogles Sean!”

Billy’s chin dropped. “I bloody hell haven’t! You shut your fucking gob, Orlando, you’re pissed and cracked.”

“The fuck I’m not!”

Dom emerged from his room, where he had been logging Sean onto his computer.

He was less than amused.

“What the bloody hell is going on here?”

Orlando and Billy didn’t miss a beat in their insults, while Elijah tried, with a low voice and red cheeks, to update Dom.

“The usual fight, Dom.”

Dom frowned.

“Listen, guys, as flattered as I am that you feel the need to protect my honor, this is uncalled for!”

Neither man appreciated the joke.

“Get off it, Dom. I don’t appreciate being the second choice, and you think I don’t know!”

“Know what?” Dom snapped back.

“Why can’t you just fess up and admit you’re in love with Billy? That you want each other the way Elijah wants Sean!”

“What?” Sean had appeared at some point, no doubt drawn by the noise.

Elijah felt his stomach drop to the floor, and run away screaming like the parasite from the movie “Alien”.

“I may be, but I’m right, Billy!”

Elijah hadn’t been paying attention to what Billy said.

Dom curled his fingers into a fist.

“Elijah, what is Orlando talking about?” Sean leveled his eyes at Elijah, his voice calm, too calm.

“Tell him, Elijah,” Orlando urged. “Someone has to be honest around here.”

“Shut your fucking gob, Orlando. Let him be!” Dom snapped.

“Dom! Orlando!’ Elijah held his hands up, his stomach turning in knots at the way Sean was staring at him with glittering eyes.

“What is it that they want you to talk to me about, Elijah?”

Elijah dug his fingers into his hair, trying to think past the escalating argument Billy and Dom and Orlando were having.

”Tell him Elijah! Dom, get off of it already…” Orlando yelped.

“Elijah.” Sean’s eyes silently pleaded with him.

“Orlando…” Billy tore off into an accented stream of curses.

“Dom…” Orlando pointed at Billy, his face red from screaming, though Elijah was too distracted to hear what he said.

“Billy…” Dom stood in front of Billy, trying to meet his eyes and calm him down.

“Alright! Sean! I’m in love with you!”

“I heard you talking to Viggo, Billy! I heard you say you had feelings for Dom!”

A hush fell over the apartment.

“Elijah, I had no idea…”

Elijah felt the steam vaporize over his head.

“Yeah, well, now you know what problems I was having…”

His voice croaked, as he gathered his coat, hating himself for telling and hating the sad look on Sean’s face even more.

“You’re a fucking wanker, Orlando.” Billy snatched up his jacket, and slapped the door behind him.

Orlando opened his mouth, as Elijah made for the door, and behind him he heard Dom speak to him.

“Dominic, I didn’t mean…”

“Get out, Orlando.”

Elijah didn’t stay behind to hear his response.

*

The first time Sean tried to talk to Elijah, it didn’t go over so well.

He saw Elijah the next day of filming—Monday—and Elijah took one look at him, and knew what he had to say.

“I tried to call you all weekend…We need to talk…You know I’m married right?”

So Elijah did the mature, responsible thing.

He ran like the dickens after every take into the bathroom, and didn’t emerge until his scene was called.

After two days Peter sent a nurse after him, and he had to assure her he was in fact, not dying of a chronic case of diarrhea.

*

The second time Sean tried to talk to Elijah he cornered them after a script meeting in the wee hours of the night at Peter’s house.

Elijah remembered the shirt sticking to his back as the two stood in the sticky warm night air, while Sean tried to casually go on about the stars, and the clarity of the night.

By the time Sean worked up the nerve to talk about the very thing Elijah wanted to not talk about, Fran stuck her head out of the patio and announced their return to the meeting.

Elijah might have been hallucinating, but he thought he saw disappointment, and something more, written all over Sean’s face that time.

*

The third and final time Sean tried to talk to Elijah, they were at dinner at a family restaurant, and JRD was ordering—which meant they would be eating leftovers for no less than a week.

As John blathered on about crab, venison, and chicken, Sean situated himself right next to Elijah, and eyed him over the top of his menu.

When he opened his mouth to speak, Elijah held a finger up to shush him, and slipped him the note he’d written on a napkin.

_“I know you want to talk to me.”_

Sean opened his mouth to speak again, and Elijah interjected with the other side of the napkin.

_“I don’t want anyone else to hear. Say what you have to say on the napkin.”_

Sean made a noise of impatience, but wrote in tiny letters in the upper left corner.

_“I’m sorry Orlando put you in that situation, I know you must be embarrassed.”_

Elijah’s cheeks colored just from the mention.

Sean wrote more.

_“But I don’t want you to feel like you can’t be my friend because of how you feel. It doesn’t change that, Elijah.”_

Elijah looked down, and smiled distractedly at a joke Viggo made about John.

Sean continued.

_“The problem I would imagine you would have with how you felt is the fact that I’m married. And I love her. And no one is going to change that. I love my family.”_

Elijah swallowed around the dryness of his throat.

_“And a relationship with a married man would carry a lot of consequences, sacrifice and would in effect split the affections of a man and secretly split a happy home.”_

Elijah nodded slightly, feeling a sting in the back of his eyes. He knew Sean would feel that way.

_“Then there is the fact of the object of your desire’s…orientation. I mean, would he return the feelings? Does he like boys? Traditionally, a man with a wife doesn’t find himself attracted to another man.”_

Elijah darted his eyes away from Sean.

 _“See Elijah, I know the questions, concerns, and demons you must have wrestled all these months,”_ he looked right at Elijah as he continued to write. _“Because they have been my own.”_

Elijah felt his stomach bottom out again, and a smile tickled the corners of his lips.

“Sean…” He whispered, but Sean cut him off.

_“You never gave me a chance to talk to you, all week, Elijah.”_

Elijah looked down embarrassed all over again.

_“Had you given me a chance, you would have heard me-”_

Sean cleared his throat, as he surreptitiously swiped Liv’s napkin, as his had been covered in writing.

_“I love you too, Elijah.”_

The table cheered, though not because of their declaration, but because the waiter arrived with a feast, and the hungry patrons could now eat.

And little did anyone know, but under the table, between eating and light conversation, Sean slipped his warm hand into Elijah’s.

It was the best dinner Elijah had ever been to.

*

The first time Elijah and Sean kissed, it was just outside the restaurant, in the cover of the shadows just beyond the reach of the streetlights.

They were waiting for a taxi, as both were red cheeked from wine.

Sean’s eyes got heavy, and his smile got soft, and just as Elijah let out a wine-scented puff of air again his lips, their mouths met.

It was the sweetest kiss Elijah ever had.

*

The second time Elijah and Sean kissed it was rougher than the first, and against the wall just inside Elijah’s small flat. Sean’s hands grappled at the bottom of Elijah’s shirt, popping a few buttons off, though Elijah didn’t care. He was just glad to be there in the very situation he feared never would come to be. They had spoken softly on the way to his house, the cliché and trite “What do we do now?” Sean’s face got serious and haunted, as he softly said, “All I can promise you is right here, right now.”

Elijah assured him it was okay. “Let’s worry about tomorrow in the morning.”

*

The third time Sean and Elijah kissed it was as their nude bodies fell together on Elijah’s unmade bed, in the orange glow of the streetlight.

Elijah had found out from Dom what went where and how, but once he was face to face with Sean, and Sean’s aroused body, he forgot it all, and it was all he could do to muster the courage to ask Sean what he wanted.

“I-I didn’t even buy lube…”

Sean turned just as red as Elijah did, and the two dissolved into a fit of breathless giggles, but as they laughed, their bodies were drawn closer to each other until they realized they probably didn’t need much else.

Sean pressed himself atop Elijah, his strong thighs warm against the inside of Elijah’s legs, and the sparks that flew when their cocks touched, made both men shiver.

It was a delicious feeling.

Then Sean’s big hands cupped Elijah’s face, and they stared at one another, sometimes laughing softly, but mostly just getting used to the feeling of each other in the new and exciting position.

Elijah chose to ignore the small rational part of him that warned him not to get too used to it.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on it, because suddenly their hips were moving, and the heat between them was crashing into each other, and a shower of stars flashed behind Elijah’s eyes in sync to the frenetic rushed feeling that crept up his lower back. He ran his hands up and down Sean’s back, his fingers hot against the cool sheen of sweat, and then he cupped Sean’s ass, and pulled hard, until their hipbones ground against one another, and a fireworks show erupted.

When he opened his eyes, he giggled, unaware that he’d even closed them.

Sean looked sleepy and happy.

The two sighed, breathless, and too tired and sticky to untangle their legs, and lie still until their breaths no longer drowned out the noise of the crickets chirping down below.

And just before sleep overtook Elijah, Sean pulled himself up onto his elbows, and kissed Elijah for the forth time, and then murmured, “I love you.”

And as Elijah finally drifted off, in the arms of the man he’d never thought he’d have chance with, he grinned, and decided that the forth time was the charm.


End file.
